Come What May and Love It

Our Story:  Meeting and Becoming Friends Part 1 of 2 Both of us were attending BYU. Gariet just got back from his mission from the Czech Republic and I was starting my Junior year. Honestly, I had given up on love and dating. I wanted to be friends with everyone. I prayed to Heavenly Father to give me a calling where I could get to know everyone in the ward. That is when I received a call from Brother Bam and later was called to be the Publicity Co-Chair. I went to church early because of my calling. I needed to print and hand out programs. This was so outside of my comfort zone to stand and talk to everyone that was coming in. I pretended to be this little social butterfly, but on the inside I was dying. I met the 202 boys as they all came in from church. They all introduced themselves, but I was meeting a lot of people that day and did not remember their names. The impression of that apartment stuck with me. I could just tell they were all good people. I honestly did no

A year ago today, I was starting my calling early in the morning to get all the programs printed and folded before church started. Around 11, a group of 4 boys showed up. They were all roommates and I remember thinking it was really cool that they all came to church together. They introduced themselves- I think- twice, but I still did not quite remember all of their names.  I knew one was super tall, one was more fashionable, one wore think rimmed glasses and had brown hair, and one wore glasses and had blond hair with a nice blue suit. I hate admitting this now, but I went through their new membership sheets later on that evening and looked at them all intently and invited them to be friends on Facebook. I thought these guys were fun, but I didn't realize then what good friends we would become. A year ago tomorrow, I would have come home from a family get together heart broken from a text message and with my first ever wasp sting on my head. I saw a flyer for a party that was ha

I have told this story so many times, I feel like I might as well share it on my blog. Our First Date (10/19/2013) People ask me if I was surprised to get engaged. The answer is yes, and no. I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be in July. I just didn't know when or where. We had gone ring shopping a couple weeks before and I knew he had the ring, but I had no idea what it looked like. It was important to me and to Gariet that he pick out the ring. I told him styles and designs that I liked and didn't like, but I never told him which one I wanted. Honestly, I am glad I didn't have to choose because I would have never been able to make a decision! Kindred Dead Concert (One week after we started dating) Gariet's mom came into town about a month ago. It was fun getting to know her better and at the end of the week she gave us an 'early birthday gift' with passes to Thanksgiving Point. As Gariet and I were looking through the pamphlets, I notice

Life has never been perfect. For me- it sometimes feels like the world is just giving you one punch after another. It feels like you are being hit when you are already down. Okay...that sounds really depressing. Stick with me please. This week, I have been amazed again by how well Heavenly Father knows me. He knows what I need when I need it, though I might not always agree. I remember in 9th grade when A-Hour got divided into two classes. I prayed that I would stay in one class, but then I got divided into the other. I wanted to cry as I took the long march to the new classroom. But you want to know something, I needed to be in that class. I made some amazing friends in that class and was able to still be Service Club President that year (which meant ditching A-Hour once a week). Tender Mercy. I also remember when I got the scholarship notification during my senior year of high school and my dream school had let me down. I didn't know if I would be able to afford to attend t

Last Father's Day, I did a post dedicated to my dad. I felt it was necessary to also do a post dedicated to my Mom for Mother's Day. *Sorry Mom in advance for the pictures...I didn't get them approved by you. I figure I will ask forgiveness rather than permission :) As I have been pondering what I should write for my mom, I saw this quote by Sheri Dew (One of Mom's favorite speakers). "Few of us will reach our potential without the nurturing of both the mother who bore us and the mothers who bear with us." Yeah- when I read that, it hit me pretty strong. I was not an easy teenager. I can tell you that for sure. At the time I was struggling with depression and not really understanding what was going on in my head. It was all so confusing. This caused me to lash out on my family and storm off to my room. Yep...I was one of those teenagers. (I swear I am going to get a child worst than me someday). Looking back, I can't help but feel complete gu

This blogpost has been going through my mind a lot these last few weeks, but finally I decided I needed to write it out after falling in love with this video. This month I have searched high and low for a modest swim suit. It is interesting to find out what the world now thinks is “modest”. Saying something was a “one piece swimsuit” used to mean that it was modest, but slowly even the one-piece suits have become lower cut in the front, in the back, and on the sides.   It is no longer modest when there is more skin than suit or it is just barely covering up the bare essentials.   It is interesting to see how my views have changed. Up until last year this girl was so insecure about her body that she wore a swimsuit with basketball shorts and a t-shirt. I know. I was pretty bad. But as I have come to appreciate my body more, I have wanted to stay modest without being prudish. Women have it hard these days. We live in a world that is plastered with images of Size 0 and told tha

This Easter season, there has been a trend going around with the hashtag "#BecauseofHim". I didn't want to follow the rest of the crowd, but as I started reflecting, I wanted to write a blog post about my thoughts. So here it goes... Because of Him... I get to study at this great university that is centered around the Spirit. It is amazing the kind of people you meet and experiences you get to have when it is centered around Jesus Christ. Because of Him... I have the most amazing friends in the whole world. I got to meet them through common beliefs and an understanding of Jesus Christ. Because of Him... I get to stay with these crazy people FOREVER. They are stuck with me whether they like it or not. Jesus died and was resurrected so that we may live again. We can be with our families forever. This is something I have grown to appreciate more and more as I have not lived in the same state as my family for three years. Because of Him... I am here. He helped me

Life is busy. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you are probably in for a rude awakening. I am really starting to realize how impossible it is to fit everything in. It is especially hard as a young, single college student.   There is school. There is homework. There is work. There are church callings. There is scripture study and prayers. On top of all that, you want to try to have an ounce of a social life. It is hard! Sometimes life can be overwhelming. Sometimes, I feel so split in all these different directions. I feel like it is impossible to get it all done. I wake up in the morning and I have to attend 4 hours of class. Then I need to go to work. Once I come home, it doesn’t stop there. I have homework to complete, projects to work on, emails to send, students to contact, and people to visit. I try to get all these things done quickly so I can get a couple of hours to chill with my boyfriend before going to bed at a decent hour and waking up to start it over again. The

Being me- I needed to write a blog post about my accident. It helps me to understand everything that has happened. After everything that has happened in the last 24 hours, I feel like writing this blog post will bring be some sort of closure. I am so so so incredibly blessed. Words cannot event express the humility I feel right now. It was really bad. I was sitting at a stoplight in Orem ( Here is the Google Map of where it was ). I didn't even see it coming. Suddenly a car slams into me at full speed. They had lost control. This caused me to slam into the truck in front of me. I remember those 2 seconds felt like 5 minutes. I don't remember seeing my life flash before my eyes. I don't remember thinking about what was happening. All I remember is hearing myself say "You're okay. You're okay. You're okay." These words are what helped me stay calm for so long. Smoke started coming into my car and I knew I needed to get out. Some random guy-- I stil

*NOTE: I apologize for this post. I have been feeling really sentimental and this post just came out of all that. It is so interesting how your whole life can be altered by one decision. I was talking to some good friends. We were randomly just talking about how I became friends with his whole apartment in August. I had not really thought about when we became friends because I thought it was a completely different moment. Then he told me about when he felt that we had first interacted on a non-superficial level and how it really changed everything else. Let me rewind...It was the day before school started in August. I went over to a family dinner. I got stung by a wasp for the first time in my life (it was a very traumatic experience).  Then I texted the boy I liked at the time and asked if he wanted to watch a movie that night. He ended up being busy, and I ended up going home from the family get-together kind of sad. I had promised myself that I would get out of my comfort zone

To those of you who heard my testimony today, I apologize that I am repeating myself. This is an experience I just needed to write down for myself. Let's rewind to Monday night. I hadn't been feeling all that great. I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. I just was ready to go to bed. I told myself that I would come home from FHE and go to sleep. I was in my pajamas by 8:30- crazy for a college student, right? One of my friends dropped in for a visit. After she left, I had one of those moments where I just felt completely alone. I went to my room and prayed when a few simple words came to my mind. "Heavenly Father, Are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?" These two lines from the children's primary song were stuck in my mind. In the moment, it is easy to doubt that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. How can He really hear every single prayer around the world? How can He answer every single one? It just

I have been very open about my past depression. I have told people about my struggles, but I always make sure that I talk in the past tense. I need to be honest. It is not just in the past. Did I go through hard things back in High School? Yes. Have things gotten easier? No. Some days are harder than others. And I have had my share of bad days in the last year. In fact, last semester was probably the worst I have been in a long time. Anyway- a few nights ago got really bad really fast. I was feeling alone and in the dark. I sat in my car and just cried because of the rush of emotion and dark thoughts filling my head.  I decided to look up a talk by one of my amazing professors, Brad Wilcox. In this address, he talks about grace. I really love the talk and would encourage you all to read it . One thing he said was "So grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tun

Yesterday, I took a group to go Hospital singing. We were having a rough time on the second floor. We were being told 'no' or 'not today' by every person. I was feeling sick to my stomach. Here I had gotten 15 people to give up their precious time on a Sunday afternoon and we weren't even able to do what we came to do! We got to sing to one person on the second floor. Then, I felt like we needed to go to the third floor. Realize that I have been going hospital singing for eight months now almost every Sunday. I had never been to the third floor before. But yesterday, we needed to go there. My goodness. It is indescribable the events that went down on that third floor. I am going to try to write them down for my own sake, but I will not do them justice. First we visited Lynn. He was an old man sitting in a dark room. I don't even remember what songs we sang, but afterward we just started talking to him. He had such a strong testimony. One person asked "

Rewind to December 3, 2013. I was sitting in the JSB watching the Tuesday Devotional. This was the first devotional that I got to attend since before practicum. Can I just say that it was that it was perfect timing for me? The person speaking was Brother Gerald Causse, the first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric. His devotional address was entitled "For When I Am Weak, Then Am I Strong." One thing he said really stood out to me. He said "One reason we may not want to acknowledge our personal limitations is that weakness is perceived by society as a fault or a failure." In a little post-it note on my computer desktop, I put "weakness is perceived by society as a fault." It has been there for the past month just reminding me of this wonderful talk. Fast forward to yesterday. I was sitting at work when one of by good friends came in. I went over to say hi to him and he asked me for some words of wisdom. This caught me off guard. I told him that I was